


Fear of Life

by RoleplayFanfics



Series: Star Wars: Ends and Beginnings [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Genre: Armitage Hux surviving, Hux POV, Hux surviving, M/M, POV Hux, Post canon, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Reflections on the First Order, Reflections on the plot, The Rise of Skywalker spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22035400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoleplayFanfics/pseuds/RoleplayFanfics
Summary: (THE RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILERS FANFIC)Then suddenly, one day, the worlds rose up against the Order. Hux no longer knew if they were rebelling against the First or the Final Order, but as the Star Destroyed in the sky caught fire, Hux knew that the rule of the Republic would rise again. It took a long time for the real truth to reach them, and even as it did, the information given to Hux and people like him was not elaborate. Hux still had work to do, perhaps more than ever, as the scavengers brought anything and everything they could from the ruined Order.Then the news finally reached the planet: Kylo Ren was dead. Hux… didn’t know what to think or feel. But at the same time, Ben Solo was celebrated as a hero. Was Ren dead? Was Ben Solo alive? What had happened?After all, Ren had promised to return for him.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Series: Star Wars: Ends and Beginnings [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1584718
Comments: 2
Kudos: 83





	Fear of Life

**Author's Note:**

> After reading Fear of Death, Teddy took upon himself to continue the series with writing a post-movie sequel, telling what happens to Hux after the last work. There will be at least one more work in the series. - Nathan
> 
> Similarly with Fear of Death, the story draws from information about Hux from outside the movie trilogy, as well. 
> 
> Fanfic Order:  
> Fear of Death  
> Fear of Life

_Thunk._

The sound of a steel enforced shoe colliding with wood echoed in the room, followed by the sound of the wooden cane bouncing off against more metal objects, as it was sent deep into a mess of metal scrap, cables, and metal shelves. 

“Sloane, stop leaving your cane everywhere.” A tired voice gruffed out, as Hux lift his head, trying to follow where his cane had disappeared off to. The alien who had hired him peeked up from somewhere far off, gruffing something in a language which Hux didn’t understand. He looked to the other human, frowning as he was waiting for a translation, as the man who kicked the cane returned with it to him. “She says that she took enough of a chance in hiring you without needing to have the staff look after your things for you.” 

Hux accepted the cane back, and placed it even closer to himself than he had before, so that it was next to his leg this time. It seemed that people would trip or kick his cane so matter where it was, and he had a hard time telling if it was deliberate or not at this point. His paranoid mind told him that they intended to kick it, with the intention of mocking him or make fun of him as they did, but even he had to admit that it seemed a little strange as most actually returned the cane for him after they had kicked it away. Nonetheless, it was incredibly humiliating. He needed the cane to be able to get anywhere safely, and to have other people offer it back to him, with that look of pity, or that look or irritation, was… hurtful. Hux had never realized just how much one struggled when one couldn’t afford help. He might have had a harsh childhood, but he had nonetheless always had access to pain killers, and medical treatment, if the pain was unbearable enough that something within his body had actually broken. He felt like a child again, like he had back when he was stuck under his father’s command, helpless, weak… Pathetic. 

Armitage Hux had always feared death. Not any more than any other person did, but he had always worked hard to prevent it. He recalled most of his life with a feeling of paranoia, of knowing that a lot of people would benefit from his death. He always kept his knife with him, and wore protective clothing which would shield him from blasts to his chest. Hux had kept constant vigilance, and never allowed himself to be caught unprepared. His paranoia was so strong that he couldn’t even sleep properly, and while that had gained him a reputation of being hardworking, it hadn’t done much to calm his mind. 

Yet it was not a love of life that kept him alive, it was a desire to not be killed. Hux knew very well that he wasn’t supposed to be alive, that he wasn’t supposed to have been born. Since the time of his birth, he had been unwanted, and a great shame upon his father’s consciousness. Armitage Hux should never have been, and yet he was. For the longest time, he had only stayed alive because he wanted to spite his father. He had no real goal or wants before that. It was followed by a desire to govern his inherited Order, make it successful. Then, he had gotten to a point where he realized that he wanted to become the Supreme Leader, and while that seemed impossible, he had wanted it nonetheless. Yet that had been a wish which placed him in an even more dangerous situation, and the fight against death had become more prominent in his life. Never once had Hux fought for his desire to live, he had fought the worlds’ desire for him to die. Thus, when he found himself in his current situation, Hux could no longer tell if he actually wanted to live, or if he simply did not want to die. Life was frightening, unpredictable, and in was by every sense of the word, terrifying. 

Armitage Hux had never in his life planned for a life outside of the First Order. He had been there when it began, he had always, always been with it. He had been a part of it, lead it, built it, and by the time it crumbled, he had betrayed it. He sometimes argued with himself over having betrayed the First Order, while continuously insisting that he did not betray the Order, but betrayed its Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren. 

Ren was not a politician, he was not an admiral or general, and in all honesty, he wasn’t a very good leader. The man had been far too busy focusing on his own goals that he neglected a lot of the work which was needed to be done, preferring to leave such matters to his generals, while he himself went out on the battlefield. Every general had their own aspirations and ideas of how things should be done, and while things might have worked out for a short while, Ren’s lack of leadership had already begun creating cracks between the different people who were supposedly working under him. Instead of working for the First Order, the generals around Hux were striving for their own political agenda; no one cared about the Order itself, or its goals. If Kylo Ren had won his mad war against the entirety of the galaxy, there would have been civil war within the Order in a matter of years, perhaps even months. 

However, things very suddenly changed for the worst, long before any risks of internal structures crumbling; the First Order was to be replaced by a Final Order. Some manner of army created by a long dead Sith Lord. What had been Hux’s legacy, and the only thing he had left in the world, after his adoptive sister passed away by the hands of a rebellious Stormtrooper, was ripped from his hands at the time he had struggled the most to keep it from falling apart. It had been the final insult to everything which was Hux’s, and he had turned from his Order, from Kylo Ren, and from the Emperor, in a desperate act. Was it rebellion? He had little experience with rebellion, only having experienced when he had his father killed, when he had screamed at Kylo Ren after Supreme Leader Snoke’s death, and then, when he handed the information about the Final Order off to the rebels. 

Months had passed now, and Hux had been experiencing the worst time in his life. Upon being shot in the chest by General Pryde, he had thought that he would never wake up again, so it had been with utter confusion that he had found himself opening his eyes in the medical bay, only to be addressed by the Supreme Leader himself, and then to be stripped by all his titles and told to remove himself from the ship. Hux recalled the words of Kylo Ren’s in utmost clarity, despite the time which had passed. The man had claimed that he chose Hux’s Order, and that he would come to find him again, after everything was over. Hux hadn’t believed him. Then again… perhaps he had wanted to believe him. Perhaps he had wished himself capable of believing Ren’s words. 

His chest had been treated by the medical droids, but they left his leg to heal on its own, which it had not been able to do fully, thus rendering the former General a cripple. He couldn’t walk without the support of his cane, and was unable to walk far. If he had held grudges towards the former Stormtrooper before, it was nothing compared to the grudges he held now. 

Hux had received a small ship, and he had packed his few belongings, and left the First Order. He did not believe for a second that he would make it far before he was shot down, but no one cared to fire at him, and he left without incident. Hux had never been good at piloting a ship, but he was more than capable of reading a map, and had thus set his destination somewhere where he knew there to be few blockades and fewer patrols. However, his fuel decided he should land earlier than he had planned on, and he had to settle for a different end location than he had planned. He had landed his spacecraft away from a bigger city, and had made his way over towards the city on foot. The walk was harsh on his wounded leg, and he had to continuously stop to breathe. 

During the walk, he had a lot of time to think, and it was with great pain that he realized that he had no plan. He had money, certified First Order money, which meant that he wasn’t poor, but he was increasingly aware that he had no place within the First Order, as he was a traitor, who might as well be shot on sight. Lucky enough for him, he had found himself almost unable to recognize his own reflection, upon looking at himself reflected in the metal surface of the TIE fighter, right before he left. Hux had been very surprised by how quickly he was able to grow a beard. He had always made certain that he was clean shaven, and without a single hair out of place on top of his head. His time in the medical bay had given him quite a lot of stubble, and by the time he landed on this planet, his stubble had grown enough to be considered a small beard. Added to that was the messy hair, leaving Armitage Hux looking like a person whom he couldn’t identify as himself. He had exchanged his uniform for civil clothes, which felt uncomfortable and unfamiliar against his skin, and found that he wasn’t likely to be recognized by somebody who didn’t know him very well. It was with great displeasure that he realized the fact that Kylo Ren was likely to be the only one capable of recognizing him like that. 

The biggest problem remained, and that was to actually enter the city. He would have preferred to simply walk inside, but the Stormtroopers by the gates of the city demanded identification from those who wished to enter, and Hux had the unpleasant realization that he couldn’t have identified himself as Armitage Hux even if he had wanted to. He had exited the forest to find a line of people trying to enter the city, and for a while, he just sat watching the gates, trying to think of some way to get inside it. He saw people being let in, and people who were shooed away from the gates, as well as two people who were shot when they tried to push past the blockade and get inside the city itself. Hux involuntarily grabbed his chest as he recalled the pain of the shot in his chest, feeling very keen on not repeating the incident again. 

As he had been sitting there, a big alien creature, who might have been more tentacles and eyes than it had been solid mass, had slithered up to him, and addressed him in a tongue which he did not speak. As he had been staring up at it, a human had walked around it, translating for him.

“The Lady Azareth asks you if you are a cripple.” The human translated. He was a rather short man, with sunburnt skin and white hair, making Hux think that he was some manner of half breed rather than he was a full blooded human. The ice-blue eyes made the former General even more certain of the other’s blood status. 

“Am I a… Oh, no. I mean, I can still walk, so I am not crippled.” Hux retorted, finding it very hard to not speak in a voice of authority. 

The big alien laughed in response, making Hux very certain that she could understand him, and simply chose not to speak his tongue out of superiority. It didn’t cross his mind that the human tongue might not be possible to pronounce for a being such as The Lady Azareth. The translator continued, most likely changing his Lady’s words slightly as to not be too direct with him. “The Lady Azareth tells you that you will never find a job with a leg like that. And the only way inside the city is to find work.” 

Hux was unable to hide his anger, which flared up upon the alien coming over to him only to insult him. “Tell The Lady that I’m already well aware of my situation.” He turned away from them, expecting the discussion to be over. Yet to his great surprise, he heard The Lady speak again. 

“The Lady Azareth says that with this in mind, she is offering you a job which even a cripple like you can do.” The translator continued. 

Normally, Hux would not even turn his head towards them, but he had realized that the only way inside was by means of papers, and this Lady seemed able of working around the problem. It was beyond doubt a shady deal, one that would cost him in the long run. The Lady was most likely out here to recruit workers into her business, thus getting cheap labor, who would be indebted to her for taking them into the city in the first place. Yet, he was more than desperate, as not getting into the city was likely to lead to his own death. Hux was determined not to die. _Not until Ren came back for him._ He was so surprised by his own thoughts that it took him a little longer still to respond to the alien Lady. 

“...I’m listening.” As he responded, he witnessed the creature who was The Lady Azareth smile, and he truly wished that he had never gotten to know where her mouth was located. 

“The Lady Azareth says to follow us.” 

Hux had followed them, he, as well as a few other strays who had been picked up by The Lady and taken to a rather large van which stood a bit away from the line of people trying to enter the city. Inside, false papers had been prepared for them, complete with their names and a signature and stamp of approval from the First Order. Hux felt a hurricane of emotions wash over him as he realized how easily these people falsified identities. The First Order had been meant to bring stability, and to make certain that people had an identify and voice. Yet, what happened before him was as illegal as slavetrade. Identity was supposed to mean something, and here he was, falsifying who he was alongside these criminals. 

“Name.” Spoke the alien in front of him, as Hux found himself in front of the little line, staring down at the forms in front of her, which he himself had helped formulate. He stared down at the First Order’s sigil, looking at it almost made him feel like it was staring at him, much like the disapproving gaze of his father’s, back when he was a child. “Name.” The alien repeated, clearly annoyed with him at this point. Behind him, he heard someone call out to hurry up. 

“Sloane.” Hux spoke faster than he had intended to, accidentally blurting out the familiar name of Admiral Sloane, who was pretty much the only person in his life who had helped him, and the woman to put an end to most of his father’s abuse. 

“First name or last name?” 

“That is my surname.” 

“So what is your first, ember-head?” 

He needed to think fast, and there was only one name he could think of with such short notice. “Rae...n.” He began by saying the Admiral’s first name, and quickly added a last letter as to not steal everything from the woman. 

“Raen?” Only when the alien said it out loud did he realize what the name actually sounded like. It took every bit of power he had to not scrunch his nose with distaste. He had already said it, backing out now would make it seem like he had faked it even more than he had already made it sound like he was giving out a false name. 

“Yes. Raen Sloane. That is my name.” He tried to sound certain, while it might not have convinced anyone, he received an identification, complete with a picture of himself. Hux stuffed it in his pocket and promised himself that he wouldn’t look at said picture any more than absolutely necessary. 

The Lady Azareth’s workforce had a rather simple goal, they were little less than scavengers, but they gathered metal, objects, broken things and pieces of broken things. They were everywhere in the city, hidden in the back alleys and garbage dumps, and they were always the first to invade a newly abandoned home and take all that could be taken. Even cripples like Hux had a place in her ranks, as they were the ones to go through all that had been scavenged, and save the things which could be resold or reused. It wasn’t a legal job, but The Lady Azareth had such a prominent presence in the city that not even the First Order could get to her. Hux found to his great despair that people like The Lady not only existed under the rule of the First Order, but they thrived. He had thought that those kinds of people had been eradicated, replaced by people in legitimate power, rather than criminals, yet the reality was different and cruel. 

Not only that, Hux despaired as he realized just how powerless and frightened he was. The Stormtroopers, who had been something consistent in his life for as far as he could remember, always in the background to be commanded and ordered about, were suddenly large threats. He had begun fearing the sight of their white uniforms more than he could recall fearing anything in his life. Words which had previously been little more than vague buzzing in the far distance were now his deepest fears. He saw what happened to the people without their papers, and he heard about workers who had been caught with falsified papers. He lived every single day in fear, he heard the sounds of people being brutally hurt or removed from their families under unclear or false claims. They weren’t safe, and Hux fell asleep every night knowing that his door might be kicked in at any time, and that he would be dragged off into the night to never see the suns rise again. 

His leg troubled him, when the days and nights grew colder, his leg hurt even more, negatively affecting his work. He was slow in moving from places to places, and people would take little care in where they were walking. More than once, he was shoved aside so forcefully that he fell to his knees, or the cane knocked out of his hand, leaving him hopping after it. Hux heard others complain about him, complain about him being slow, or about the cane being in the way. He quickly relearned a different form of shame of his weakness, and of his hurting leg. He learned to be thankful that somebody like him was even allowed to work at all, and not left on the streets to be taken away by the Order. 

Hux realized the fear and terror that was the First Order, he learned that the Order had never made anything better. Life under the First Order was horrifying, and it seemed that its goals of protecting the galaxy and offering work and support for those in need had been nothing but empty promises. 

At times, he thought of Kylo Ren. He thought of the man’s warmth, the feeling of his gloved hands, the feeling of his naked hands. He thought of the touch of his lips, the way the cold nose would be pressed against his shoulder when the Supreme Leader was cold. He thought of times when Ren had come to his bed, he thought of times when Hux had come to his. Yet more than anything, he thought of the man saying that he would come for him. That he would come back for him. 

Then suddenly, one day, the worlds rose up against the Order. Hux no longer knew if they were rebelling against the First or the Final Order, but as the Star Destroyed in the sky caught fire, Hux knew that the rule of the Republic would rise again. It took a long time for the real truth to reach them, and even as it did, the information given to Hux and people like him was not elaborate. Hux still had work to do, perhaps more than ever, as the scavengers brought anything and everything they could from the ruined Order. Hux was still with them, as he had seen what had happened to the Stormtroopers and the generals who had been captured, and did not feel safe enough to remove himself from associating with The Lady Azareth’s workforce. It almost felt ironic that he had been running from the First Order, only to find himself fearing leaving his new affiliations, due to in any way be connected to the First Order. In short, he was stuck, and still full of fears in being discovered, even if he was no longer in immediate danger of being killed. 

_Thunk._

The sound of another steel enforced shoe connecting with his cane, this time sending it colliding with his own foot was followed by a gasp of pain from the former General. Hux looked up at the person who had walked into it this time, and managed to hold back the sharp answer he wanted to give the woman. As he returned to breaking apart something which had clearly belonged to the First Order, Hux tried to remove his thoughts from everything to do with the past. He wouldn’t be able to stop these thoughts from coming when he was stuck in bed at night, so he might as well try and not think about his future while at work. Still, some thoughts lingered stronger than others. 

Armitage Hux had always feared death. Not any more than any other person did, but he had always worked hard to prevent it. Never once had Hux fought for his desire to live, he had fought the worlds’ desire for him to die. He found himself completely incapable of thinking of a reason to live, but he found that he even less wanted to die. He was stuck in a reality where he couldn’t figure out what he wanted, or what to do with a life which had been so determinately set to a path which he never really had a choice in. Hux feared making a choice, of trying to change what had become his everyday. When he asked himself what he feared, the answer seemed to consistently be life itself. 

So he waited. 

He waited for Kylo Ren to come for him. He waited for somebody else to come and tell him what he was supposed to do in life. 

Then the news finally reached the planet: Kylo Ren was dead. Hux… didn’t know what to think or feel. But at the same time, Ben Solo was celebrated as a hero. Was Ren dead? Was Ben Solo alive? What had happened? 

To avoid thinking, to avoid feeling, Hux waited for more information, trying to push away the thoughts of the possibility that Ren would never come for him.

In the cold of the night, when Raen Sloane was alone under his blankets, and Armitage Hux was unable to escape his thoughts, he thought of Kylo Ren. Always Kylo Ren. His body, his hands, his voice. He recalled the times they had fought, the times they had sex, the times Ren had made Hux hate him, and the times when Ren had made him question if he hated him. He recalled warmth, he recalled pain, he recalled happiness and he recalled hate. Some nights he hated Ren for not coming, some nights he knew that Ren would never come, and other nights he cried. What was always consistent was a feeling of loss, a feeling that something was missing. 

Was Ren dead? Had Ren become Ben Solo? Would he ever know what had happened? 

Hux laid in his cold bed, curled together as to try and keep warm while also attempting to keep his aching leg from getting too uncomfortable. As he laid under the covers, he was struck with an uncomfortable feeling, as if something, someone, was in the room together with him. He sat up, grabbing the poor excuse of a flashlight next to him and turned it towards the little space he called his own. Hux saw his clothes, a chair, a mostly empty bookcase. There was nobody there, and there were no hiding places in which a person or creature could hide. He turned the light to the roof, just to make certain. Nothing. 

He stuffed the flashlight under his pillow, and made himself as comfortable as he could atop of the uncomfortable bed, disappearing back into the semi-warmth of his blanket’s embrace. As he tried to fall asleep once more, he heard a weak sound, so very weak that he didn’t believe it to be real until he heard it again. Hux deemed himself to have fallen asleep, and was dreaming of some old memories from long ago. He sank deeper under the covers, closing his eyes tighter. 

“Hux.” The voice came clearly in his dreams, and he shook his head upon hearing it. He wasn’t Hux anymore. He couldn’t afford to be, if he wanted to stay alive. 

The former general thought his heart would stop as he suddenly felt as if something sat down upon the bed behind him. He held his breath, unable to move, as he heard the same voice speak his name once more. It was as if the voice had suddenly become clearer, as if it had untangled itself from his memory and taken physical shape behind him. Hux realized that he recognized the voice now, when it was audible. The owner of the voice only spoke in that tone during the latest hours of the day, when neither he nor Hux were fully awake and able to object to the level of intimacy brought with it. Upon realizing that he knew the voice, he felt unable to breathe, he couldn’t quite make himself think, all his thoughts were stuck on one realization: that the owner of the voice had come to him, like he said he would. 

“Hux? Would you turn around?”

It might have been more like him to hesitate, to feel frightened or scared. It might have been more logical to think that he was dreaming still, or to not respond to the voice at all. None of those things happened, instead, Hux detangled himself from his covers, and turned towards the owner of the voice in a great hurry. He turned with a feeling of hope and happiness, he turned, knowing which face would greet him.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> \--- To be continued in the next work ---


End file.
